The Picture of Dorian Gray, moralfantasynovel by Oscar Wilde, published in an early form in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890. The novel had six additional chapters when it appeared in book form in 1891. The novel, an archetypal tale of a young man who purchases eternal youth at the expense of his soul, was a romantic exposition of Wilde’s own Aestheticism.

Dorian Gray is a handsome and wealthy young Englishman who gradually sinks into a life of dissipation and crime. Despite his unhealthy behaviour, his physical appearance remains youthful and unmarked by dissolute life. Instead, a hidden portrait of himself catalogues every evil deed by turning his once handsome features into a hideous, grotesque mask. When Gray destroys the painting, his face turns into a human replica of the portrait, and he dies.

Gray’s final negation, “ugliness is the only reality,” neatly summarizes Wilde’s Aestheticism, both his love of the beautiful and his fascination with the profane. Publication of the novel scandalized Victorian England, and The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence against Wilde in his 1895 trial for homosexuality. The novel became a classic of English literature.

Learn More in these related articles:

Oct. 16, 1854 Dublin, Ire. Nov. 30, 1900 Paris, France Irish wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for the...